An interview with Jamie Woodhouse

This week, we have an interview with Jamie Woodhouse of www.jamiewoodhouse.co.uk, erstwhile developer of Qwak (amongst others) and an ex-colleague of mine while I was at Team17

Qwak

Phil:

Hi Jamie, you’ve been in the games industry quite a while. I was wondering if you could give us some idea of your background, how you ended up becoming an indie etc?

Jamie:

Back in 1983-ish, I got my first computer, a BBC model B. I started teaching myself, learning what I could from books, and other friends with computers. I soon moved from BBC basic to (6502) assembler, and direct manipulation of screen buffer for software sprites etc. I actually developed a few games on the BBC, most of which weren’t published (only 3 published games, which were “Dead or Alive”, “Qwak”, and very recently “Zap”).

Even back then, making games was a fun creative thing to do; it was much more about engaging with the creative process; rather than a means to make money; and that’s something, an ideal I guess, that’s always stuck with me. After the BBC, I had an Atari 2600 VCS (so, not so much coding on that then!), then an Atari 800 XL, which I didn’t develop anything for that, the development environment wasn’t so good as it was on the BBC.

Next it was an Atari ST, which was great. Again I did quite a few unpublished games for the ST, mostly shoot-em-ups. I did some pretty nifty trickery on the ST to squeeze the best performance out of the limited ST hardware. It’s the kind of trickery that’s no so important these days, what with the speed of modern gaming hardware etc.

I then started developing some code that could take a source sprite and compute 32 degrees of rotation for that sprite (all stored in RAM). Coupled with some software scrolling this soon turned in to a vertical scrolling, top-down racer, which I took to Psygnosis, and it became Nitro.

I thought Psygnosis were a pile or crap, and I left (after Nitro) not wanting anything more to do with them. I got the impression they were more concerned with making a quick buck, rather than nurturing positive win-win relationships with talented developers. Okay, not good to dwell on the past but I do think a lot of people involved in games, are cock-suckers, and just in it for a quick buck, and have no soul or creative instinct what-so-ever.

Hmm, I also had a few months at Gremlin, in house in Sheffield. That was just before I developed Qwak on Amiga. After Nitro, I did a new version of Qwak for the Amiga, which I remember touting it to some publishers at ECTS. It wasn’t until the end of that day that I showed it to Martyn at the Team 17 stand. After so many rejections by other publishers I was quite surprised they actually liked it, and saw potential in the game.

In contrast to certain Liverpool based game developer-publishers, Team 17 were a great company to work with. Certainly in the early days, they were innovative and there was a good creative fresh buzz about the place. They had a genuine interest in Qwak, everyone in the office was enthusiastic about the game and while I was definitely holding the creative reins, other people did have suggestions and input. Yeah, was good back in those days and I have fond memories, but I guess the creative dynamic changed as they grew bigger and more successful (maybe it’s wood-rot, perhaps due to the worms infestation?! … only joking, Team 17 were good to me, and I wish them all the best).

In recent times, I’ve been focusing on PC and Mac, with new versions of Qwak (www.qwak.co.uk), I really shouldn’t do anything more with Qwak now. It kinda feels like I’m just repeating myself, creatively, and not risking doing anything new, which in some ways kinda sucks. Right now, today, this week; I’m working on a sprite based animation tool. I guess similar to flash animation. If you look at the animation on the zombies in PopCaps’ Plants vs Zombies, where each zombie is made from several component sprites. It’s that kind of thing, only the tool I’m making isn’t flash based.

Qwak amiga box

Phil:

I’ve noticed from your site that you’ve done a fair number of games for the DS. Are you still doing DS work or are you working on other platforms as well?<Editors note: It turns out I read that wrong, it was FOR DSi not ON DS! )>

Jamie:

Did I!? For the DS?! That’s news to me!! I did make a few GBA games though, I guess they’re compatible with DS, so, perhaps maybe I did. With the exception of Qwak, all the GBA games I did were commissioned, and took around 5 weeks each to develop (in most cases I did the art too). Was just a little something to do to bring in some cash. They’re certainly not works of art and there was little scope for creativity with those games. I did do some other, really clever tricky highly-optimized ARM assembler running in RAM funky trickery on the GBA. Again, this never saw the light of day, which to be honest kinda pissed me off. It’s like all that work and effort, and no reward (no recognition, no money, no people enjoying something I made etc). I can’t blame anyone but myself for this, or for anything else that happens in life. I make the decisions and I reap the consequences of those decisions. It’s just to me, publishers didn’t seem to want innovation and creativity anymore, they just wanted any old pap, so long as it’s got some Micky Mouse license attached to it. Which is like f**king over the end-user. Which is why people need to buy games from indies, because we’re not out to f**k you over, we’re out to make great games we love making and we love it when you love playing them (and paying for them of course).

Phil:

I get the impression that there is only you working on your products, is that right? How do you handle things like artwork?

Jamie:

Oh yeah, for a lot of games I’ve done my own art. I quite enjoy it in some ways, though it can detract me from coding, which I guess is my strength. So in that way, in a pragmatic sense, it’s not such a good idea. I’m sure a dedicated artist would make a much better job off producing quality art than I would. So I’m being a bit dysfunctional by spending time making my own art (rather than focusing on coding, or design etc). I tend to approach the business of making art in a technical way. I’ll develop my own processes and ways of doing stuff, that will usually be a bit technical or have some mathematical basis (which I think lends a consistency to any art you make). For example, a lot of the stuff in (PC and Mac) Qwak I drew (pixeled) over-sized, and used image majick to reduce the size. Going from 8-bit to 32-bit in the process, creating smooth anti-aliasing to edges etc. Once you’ve set up a process through which you can pump all your art creation, it seems to go pretty well.

Phil:

How do you view your work as an indie? Are you aiming to create a specific style of game? Or do you have a market in mind?

Jamie:

I view it as a fun thing that I love to do. The way I see it, I’ve got a limited number of years of life on this planet and before I check out I want to spend as much time doing something I love. There’s also an inherent joy in doing something well, to the best of your ability. It’s not like a showing off thing, give me a medal, or anything like that. It’s an inner satisfaction you get from knowing you’ve followed your heart and you’ve done something as best you can. As far as markets go, well, I’m feeling more and more inclined to trust my own inner instinct, and not be so ‘in my head’ (i.e. calculating) about the whole thing. I think when you do that there’s a real danger of diminishing your heart-felt creativity.

I kinda have in my mind and heart, ideas of things I want to do and so that’s what I’ll do. As for specific style of games? Well, fun games, that people love to play. Maybe that’s too generic? I do have a specific game idea in mind though, which I think would be absolutely awesome and fun. I’m wondering if it would be too much though, I mean, for me personally to develop it all. I should be thinking more in terms of building up a team, at least get together with one or more artists.

Qwak screenshot 2

Phil:

Have you found that it can be hard to get recognition for your games? Do you have a marketing plan in place before you start development? How much marketing do you do for your games?

Jamie:

I suck at marketing!!! I know it’s a very very important thing, it’s something I need to get handled and I will do that. I really like what the wolfire guys do with their indie marketing. I think I’ll just copy those guys, or cliffski (i’ll be bringing my notebook and pen to this indie meet-up we’re having!). No, seriously; I want to make games, and I want to make the games that I want to make and to do that it’s important to get the market sorted. Another thing that occurs to me is making your games accessible. You have to make a game such that someone can pick it up and “get it” within like 5 minutes or preferably 30 seconds. I think with a lot of my games, you don’t really get to the juicy stuff until you’ve been playing for hours. I think that’s something I need to address too.

Phil:

How is the business side of things? It seems to me like you have the experience for development but often that doesn’t make for the best business person.

Jamie:

I’m way more inclined to do the creative stuff, to just make games. That’s what juices me up. I think you’re absolutely right though, in that having or developing a talent for something is not an automatic recipe for success. You need to think wider-scope and consider your business development strategy. That’s something I’ve often neglected to do. But I am learning more and more each day and just like any skill, if you apply yourself, you can learn new stuff and you can do it.

ATR Racing screenshot

Phil:

Do you get any support for your business from the government in any way? Have you been in touch with GameRepublic for instance? Did anything come out of that?

Jamie:

Yeah, they’re not throwing wads of money at me or anything. I feel the main focus is bigger indies and companies who are already established. I wish they’d do more to help the little floundering fish. Not just myself, but smaller indies everywhere. We need some more love! (and help from regional development agencies and the government in general).

Phil:

So what are you plans for moving forward? Are you looking at the casual space, the hardcore gamer, or something else?

Jamie:

I want to finish this animation tool (which makes use of Sprite Grabber, check that out here: Sprite Grabber). After that, I may either do a quick port of Qwak to iPhone (though I’m not so convinced as to the touch screen controls, maybe PSP-go would be a better fit?). Or, I want to do a scrolling adventure-platformer (nothing to do with Qwak) featuring dungeon exploration. I’m not that inclined towards casual games, they seem kinda watered down and a bit boring to me. That said, there are some genes in the casual game space that I’d be happy to have a go at. I like the little people games, where you get a tribe of little people and you have to look after them and save them from natural disaster etc.

Phil:

Finally, is there anything you’d like to say to other British indie developers?

Jamie:

I’d like to wish every one of them the very best of luck. Always keep in mind where you want to go and what you want to achieve. Apply yourself and focus more and more on what you want to make happen. Also, if I rant on too much about following your creative impulse and I do consider that to be important, but it’s also important to get the business stuff right too. Also, go and buy Qwak (www.qwak.co.uk).

Thanks again to Jamie for agreeing to this interview!

Phil.

Tags: Interviews

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 6th, 2009 at 3:14 pm and is filed under Interviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.